


Stick Tape And Showers

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: Holding [12]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Humor, M/M, No Angst, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 06:43:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18425016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: Patrice is sharpening his skates when some of the younger guys come over to him. They’re all some combination of nervous and irritated, which is interesting but automatically makes him wary of their intentions.“Do you need something?” he asks carefully.“We need to get back at your boyfriend!”





	Stick Tape And Showers

Patrice is sharpening his skates when some of the younger guys come over to him. They’re all some combination of nervous and irritated, which is interesting but automatically makes him wary of their intentions.

“Do you need something?” he asks carefully.

“We need to get back at your boyfriend!” McAvoy blurts out, looking frustrated.

“Um… okay?” Patrice replies. “For what?”

Knowing Brad, it could be any number of stupid things. The five of them take turns listing his crimes, alternatively whining/pouting or cranky.

DeBrusk: “He put Vaseline in my mouthguard.”

McAvoy: “He kept cutting my skate laces!”

Carlo: “He filled up my skates and gloves with shaving cream.”

Heinen: “He switched my skates with Kampfer’s…”

Clifton: “He wrapped all my pads with saran wrap, like a whole roll of saran wrap for each piece of gear.”

Patrice nods slowly. “Okay… well, as long as you don’t actually hurt him…”

“Um, but can you help us do it?” DeBrusk asks. “He’ll be less mad if you do it…”

“Okay, first, it’s almost impossible to get him mad unless someone goes after me and doesn’t get called by the ref for it,” Patrice chuckles. “Second, I don’t know that much about pranks, and third, I’m not the one who wants revenge. So what do you even need me for? You’ve already got permission.”

“Yeah, but, he’s always screwing with us and stuff! We need to do something _really_ big to get him back!” Heinen protests.

Patrice sighs. “I see. So permission aside, you also need me to help you plan this.” Three of them nod and he thinks for a moment; what else has Brad done in the past? “Alright, like I said, nothing you do can actually hurt him. Are we clear on that? He’s never injured any of you, right? Hurting your pride doesn’t count.” Patrice stops and thinks again. He has some ideas slowly formulating even though he’s never actually pranked anyone before. “Okay. I think I’ve got it…”

* * *

Pulling off something with a six-man team isn’t the problem. The difficulty comes in making sure Brad isn’t aware of what’s going on. Because Brad, despite what other teams’ fans often have to say on the issue, isn’t stupid. So Patrice and his boyfriend’s victims talk for almost two hours, carefully planning and even drawing diagrams like it’s a game protocol.

The first stage is to carefully distract him (and Tuukka) while everyone’s getting ready. Distracting Tuukka is actually not the biggest issue, because Tuukka is distracted along with most of the team when a small garbage can is mysteriously discovered on fire out in the parking lot. (Patrice insisted it be in the parking lot and not in the hallway so that there wouldn’t be any smoke damage, to say nothing of accidentally burning down the building.)

Keeping Brad away from this mayhem is a slightly bigger challenge, because DeBrusk grabs him and takes him in a different direction for some creative half-truths about how the garbage can fire is his friends being stupid and while they’re away he wants advice on pranking them. Brad happily obliges him while Patrice plays dumb and follows everyone else outside to witness the miraculously self-combusting trash can. Meanwhile, he knows that McAvoy hid in some corner somewhere and is busily stealing Brad’s stick tape and putting it to good use.

Because of these factors, Brad is the only one in the locker room when everyone comes back. The timing couldn’t be more perfect, either, because as they’re coming back in and Brad is holding up his decimated roll of tape, Tuukka is at his stall and discovering his stick completely wrapped in several layers of black tape. The chatter goes quiet as the team realizes (or think they realize) what happened, and Tuukka says nothing - his expression clearly reads _I’ll punish you for this at a time more opportune for me than right before a practice._

“Tuuks, bro, I swear this wasn’t me,” Brad protests, looking slightly threatened. “I know how this looks, but I didn’t do this, really…”

“Sure, Marchy,” someone else puts in, disbelieving. Tuukka’s face remains murderous.

Practice, once their goalie has finished un-fucking his stick, goes smoothly enough. Carlo and Clifton keep looking at each other and giggling for the first fifteen minutes until Patrice goes over and reminds them that if they don’t stop Brad will notice and catch on. Once they’re finishing up, McAvoy covertly skates over to Tuukka to explain that they’re pranking Brad and ask if he wants in.

When Brad gets into the shower, a chair is snuck over to the stall and Patrice climbs onto it with a bottle of shampoo in hand. He carefully drizzles more and more of it down so that Brad is stuck trying to rinse his hair for at least seven minutes while Tuukka gets into position and Clifton puts the finishing touch on. Meanwhile Brad is starting to grumble swear words as the suds keep running down with no sign of stopping. Finally, Clifton escapes and Patrice also leaves so that Tuukka can step up on the chair and dump a bucket of cold water straight onto his boyfriend.

Chaos ensues. The whole locker room starts laughing at the list of swear words bellowed at full volume, and then comes the finishing touch. There’s a specific type of firecracker with a string protruding from each end, one for the door and one for the doorframe so that when someone opens the door it goes off. When Brad throws open the shower stall, six of them explode two inches from his face, which results in a startled howl and more cursing.

Brad finally appears, dripping and red-faced and shivering a little from the previous cold shock combining with a minor adrenalin boost. “Not funny!” he shouts at everyone, even though it’s clearly not true because everyone else is bent in two with hysterical laughter, even Patrice.

“Oh come on, Marchy, you’ve gotten everyone else plenty of times,” Z points out, the first one to recover. “It’s only fair they get you back, right?”

“But not in the fucking shower!” Brad whines, looking absolutely pathetic as the water drips off his skin to puddle on the floor and he holds his towel around his waist with one hand.

In reply to this, everyone who’s gotten his breath back starts reciting Brad’s rap sheet of practical jokes, pranks, and the borderline-hazing from when he was younger and his sense of humor was less refined.

“Babe, I think you need to just admit defeat this time,” Patrice suggests, still panting a little from laughter. Brad sulks off to his stall and gets dressed, looking so dejected that he could almost be confused for a kicked puppy. Patrice starts to leave with him, then stops, because he needs to enact the last part of the plan. “Go wait at the car, okay? I’m going to talk to them,” he explains, kissing Brad’s temple before turning around.

“So how’d we do?” Heinen asks; he and his fellows look incredibly pleased with themselves.

“Ten out of ten,” Patrice answers. “Now look. If any of you for whatever reason tell Brad that I was involved in this, I _will_ punish you for it. Do you understand?” He waits for the five of them to nod. “Good. I’m glad you enjoyed yourselves, and I’m not going to say he didn’t deserve it because if that was true I wouldn’t have helped you. But now you don’t need to do it again. Got it?”

They all nod a second time and he sends them on their way. Patrice actually does feel kind of bad about assisting them, and he knows that someday (probably in several years) he’ll let Brad know what actually happened today at practice. But for right now, Patrice is just going to drive Brad home, wrap him up in a blanket, and cuddle him until he feels better.

**Author's Note:**

> If I could actually get some comments for once, that would be nice.


End file.
